Onion and vegetable choppers are known from EP-B-0'345'223 and WO01/58652 of the applicant. They comprise a housing able to be pushed over the product to be broken up and a knife which is guided in the housing and which may be displaced against the force of a spring by means of an actuating mechanism comprising a push button and a plunger. The knife comprises a cylindrical axle or rod on whose lower end a plate-like knife holder is seated. On the lower side of the knife holder there are fastened one or more downwardly projecting blades which in a plan view are mostly wave-shaped or star-shaped. The knife may be displaced downwards against the force of the spring until the blade has completely penetrated the material to be chopped and abuts the base plate of the chopper. For the perfect functioning of all known choppers it is important that the lower cutters or cutting edges of the blades lie exactly in a horizontal plane.
Although such choppers are not designed for this, ice cubes are often cut up with known choppers in order to obtain finer pieces of ice for cocktails, drinks or for preparing foodstuffs. The chopping of ice may very easily blunt or bend the known blades. Bent blades jam very quickly with the scrapers, thereby significantly compromising the functioning ability of the chopper.
It is therefore the object of the invention to provide an apparatus which alleviates these disadvantages.